Ukraine Internal Affairs chief: Minsk Accords are dead, not even worth talking about

[Translator note: Avakov’s proposals to replace the Minsk Accords are also “dead, not even worth talking about,” but here they are.] The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs Arsen Avakov said that the Minsk agreements do not work, and new agreements must be adopted to resolve the situation in the Donbass. The minister said this in Kiev during the National Expert Forum “Ukraine: in striving for balance.”

“I consider that the Minsk agreements are dead and are no longer even worth talking about. We need to pay regard to the fact that the Minsk agreements were needed as a mechanism for a cease-fire,” Avakov said.

The head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs added that the Minsk agreements worked in their time and gave a positive result in the form of reducing the number of losses among Ukrainian servicemen.

“Can the Minsk agreements be implemented under a real mechanism to achieve peace and resolve the conflict?” My deep conviction that they can not, and especially in the manner in which Russia is trying to interpret these agreements,” added Avakov.

In his opinion, there should be the following agreements – “Vienna, Paris, any other, in which the basic principles that are laid down and discussed by all politicians now would be very clearly interpreted.”

He also listed these principles: “The first is the complete withdrawal of all Russian military formations from the territory of Ukraine, control on the Ukrainian border jointly with peacekeepers, which was proposed by President Poroshenko, the introduction of the Ukrainian justiciary on the territory of Ukraine now occupied in the Donbass and Crimea, elections.”

“If people cooperated with local administrations, forcedly or by weakness, to some extent, then this should be our will for reconciliation and we must determine that we have turned this page,” he added.

According to the minister, the “liberation” of Donbass can be achieved by the following way: “Peacekeepers together with Ukrainian forces become internationally recognized on the border of Ukraine. All the Russian divisions withdraw from the territory of Ukraine, they take with them all these semi-bandit organizations … And the organs of justice are introduced there: no people’s militias, no additional courts of their own, all exclusively in the legislative and legal field of Ukraine.”

Earlier it was reported that the Minister of Internal Affairs of Ukraine Avakov will not run for the presidency of Ukraine at the next election.